Snowden Breaks Silence as New Asylum Requests Revealed, Says He Is ‘Free and Able’ to Continue Leaking (+video)
Photo Credit: Fox News
The statements came as Wikileaks revealed that Snowden had made requests for asylum or asylum assistance to 19 additional countries around the world, following earlier requests made to the countries of Ecuador and Iceland.
In a statement issued on the WikiLeaks website, Snowden attacked the Obama administration, saying, “On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic ‘wheeling and dealing’ over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Statement from Edward Snowden in Moscow
Monday July 1, 21:40 UTC
One week ago I left Hong Kong after it became clear that my freedom and safety were under threat for revealing the truth. My continued liberty has been owed to the efforts of friends new and old, family, and others who I have never met and probably never will. I trusted them with my life and they returned that trust with a faith in me for which I will always be thankful.
On Thursday, President Obama declared before the world that he would not permit any diplomatic “wheeling and dealing” over my case. Yet now it is being reported that after promising not to do so, the President ordered his Vice President to pressure the leaders of nations from which I have requested protection to deny my asylum petitions.
This kind of deception from a world leader is not justice, and neither is the extralegal penalty of exile. These are the old, bad tools of political aggression. Their purpose is to frighten, not me, but those who would come after me.
For decades the United States of America has been one of the strongest defenders of the human right to seek asylum. Sadly, this right, laid out and voted for by the U.S. in Article 14 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, is now being rejected by the current government of my country. The Obama administration has now adopted the strategy of using citizenship as a weapon. Although I am convicted of nothing, it has unilaterally revoked my passport, leaving me a stateless person. Without any judicial order, the administration now seeks to stop me exercising a basic right. A right that belongs to everybody. The right to seek asylum.
In the end the Obama administration is not afraid of whistleblowers like me, Bradley Manning or Thomas Drake. We are stateless, imprisoned, or powerless. No, the Obama administration is afraid of you. It is afraid of an informed, angry public demanding the constitutional government it was promised — and it should be.
I am unbowed in my convictions and impressed at the efforts taken by so many.
Edward Joseph Snowden
Monday 1st July 2013
[Snowden’s statement originally appeared HERE.]
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Honey, Snowden Shrank Obama
By Jed Babbin. Even vacationing in Africa, President Obama isn’t far enough away to avoid the international disdain being heaped on him on the subject of infamous NSA leaker Edward Snowden. These days, you’re just not cool unless you’ve dissed Obama. It’s almost as if he welcomes the treatment he’s receiving.
On Thursday, President Obama said he’s not going to start “wheeling and dealing” with Russia and China to get Snowden extradited to the US. He disclaimed any intention to become involved in the matter by calling Putin or Chinese President Xi to try to get Snowden back. Obama evidently views the matter as below his pay grade.
“I’m not going to be scrambling jets to get a 29-year-old hacker,” he also told reporters during a news conference in Senegal. Nevertheless, he had Joey Biden call Ecuadoran Prez Rafael Correa on Friday to ask that Snowden be denied asylum there. Correa announced the call in a radio address, and didn’t miss the opportunity to slam Obama…
Though he’s not wheeling and dealing, you have to conclude that Obama is wheedling and diddling. Hong Kong authorities reported that they let Snowden go to Russia because our Justice Department didn’t respond to their requests for more information on why Snowden should be arrested. The Russians are denying that Snowden is really in Russia (being kept in a transit zone at an airport) so they can’t do anything about him either. And Correa is also saying that Ecuador will decide what to do with Snowden if he gets there (or to one of their embassies).
Being serially dissed by China, Russia, and now Ecuador, Obama looks — and is — more and more powerless. Yesterday, even the European Union (!) joined in. Some guy named Martin Schulz, who is apparently president of the European Parliament said he was “deeply worried and shocked” by reports that the NSA surveillance had been pointed at the EU. (My sources expressed equal shock at the idea that anyone had any interest in anything the EU had to say.) Read more from this story HERE.